


Seasonal

by Emmeebee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4881865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmeebee/pseuds/Emmeebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione and Draco enter into a secret relationship during their sixth year, but, despite the passion that quickly develops between them, it seems like they're fighting a losing battle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasonal

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Second Competition That Must Not Be Named

He falls like autumn leaves,  
wildly drifting along   
on the whims of the breeze,   
then gradually going   
down,   
down,   
down;   
down through the open abyss,   
down to an abandoned corner of the yard,   
down to the cold, hard ground,   
where light reaches him not.   
Lead astray, then left to decay,   
his colours fade and his edges fray   
until he's a rumpled and torn skeleton   
with only bits of his past vitality still clinging to his bones.

He becomes like winter,   
dull and barren and locked inside,   
curling in on himself in bleak despair   
as snow turns familiar paths cold;   
while others seek warmth in friends and blankets   
designed to chase their demons away,   
he lingers and self-flagellates,   
refusing to keep the bitterness at bay.

But then she's like spring;   
she's fresh and full of newfound life,   
like a blossom flourishing, against all odds,   
in a wasteland of squalor and destitution.   
He used to get hay fever in her presence,   
as if his body were reflexively reminding him   
of her pitiful background   
and her contemptuous blood status   
and how very out of place she was,   
but something has changed;   
she's there, but he's not sneezing.   
Instead, she pulls him out of his depression   
and removes the dust that coats his mind,   
cleaning out its cracks and crevices   
until everything looks new,   
and he feels clean   
for the first time   
in _years_.

And, together, they're summer,   
blisteringly hot and satisfied,   
and both, for once,   
careless   
and   
free.

But they're seasonal;   
they wax and wane   
like the moon and tides.   
Neither wants to verbalise   
how far they've come,   
why it works, or – _even_ –   
that they've fallen in love,   
so they fall together and then they fall apart   
before coming back for more love and heartache,   
and the cycle spirals on like a raging cyclone,   
entrapping them within in its circling winds   
and flinging their agency away   
until they all they can do is circle one another   
like two wizards afore a fight,   
so all they can do is revisit the _same – old – problems_   
over and over again.

That is, until _she_ gets flung out, too.

Bruised and broken from the fall,   
she picks herself up and looks for him,   
but he's nowhere to be found.   
Time drags on as the cyclone rages,   
and she's forced to accept it;   
he's dead, or they're dead;   
either way, there's no future there.   
She jumps headfirst into life   
and is promptly washed away   
by the rapid current.   
It pounds and distracts  
and eventually cleanses,   
and then it tips her out   
into a calm, shallow pond.   
Wiser and stronger,   
she walks on alone.

Meanwhile,   
the cyclone subsides   
to reveal him,   
still hunkered down   
in family's secret bunker;   
when he saw her get ripped away,   
he Apparated to safety,   
where he hid for the year   
while she travelled and fought.

Melancholy dissolves those enforced walls   
until he has to reckon with it all.   
He tries to follow her, but he can't;   
she left no tracks or clues,   
only bittersweet memories that linger like old caramel   
stuck to the teeth of his mind.

A decade later, they meet again;   
it's an unfortunate accident, really,   
but their eyes lock like a door   
as her oldest and his youngest   
meet on the first day of school  
and they both finally acknowledge  
that their time together is,  
truly,  
past.

Their eyes meet.  
Their brains freeze.  
Their hearts hurt.  
Their fists clench.  
Their lips smile. 


End file.
